WEDNESDAY, 9 November 2016.

This is being written aboard the good ship (actually boat) Coral II and it’s been a long day!  We got up at 5:30 and got ready to meet our transportation at the church @ 7:00 for the trip to Guayaquil where we got on an Avianca plane to San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Islands.  The driver picked up four more people whom I thought would be gringos but they were Ecuadorians.  Cesar is the leader of the group; his brother works for Southland Touring. Cesar’s mother, Esperanza,

 is with him, then another mother(Cecilia)/son (Javier)couple.

We arrived in San Cristobal around 3:15, was met by our guide, Allejandro, who is actually a conservationist for the Islands.  After lunch, we got on a bus and went to the other side of the island to the Galapagos tortoise breeding and protection area.  Allejandro told us a lot of the history of the tortoises – their near extinction and  what the government conservationists and scientists from all over the world are doing to preserve the 11 species.

After a very quick walk through part of the city, we boarded our dingies and went back to the boat, for supper, some rest & relaxation on the upper deck, where we talked awhile with Cesar.

As stated at the beginning, it’s been a long day so I’m going to bed; it will be another long day tomorrow – up at 6:00 am!  Will report more tomorrow night. I may have mentioned earlier that the boat holds 20 passengers + crew so she’s a rocking in the waters of the bay!